Coronavirus: Treasury and IRS push back deadline for Americans to file taxes — as it happened

The US Treasury department and the Internal Revenue Service have pushed back the deadline for Americans to file their federal income taxes to May 17 from April 15, marking the second year in a row US tax authorities have delayed the tax filing deadline to provide people more time amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The IRS extended the deadline last year, in the early days of the Covid-19 crisis.

Lawmakers welcomed the move, including Richard Neal, the Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, who chairs the House ways and means committee.

“This extension is absolutely necessary to give Americans some needed flexibility in a time of unprecedented crisis,” Neal said on Wednesday in a joint statement with Bill Pascrell, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey.

“Under titanic stress and strain, American taxpayers and tax preparers must have more time to file tax returns,” the lawmakers added.

The Treasury and IRS announced earlier on Wednesday that they had already disbursed about 90m direct payments valued at more than $242bn stemming from the American Rescue Plan, Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief package. The direct payments are being sent in the form of one-off $1,400 direct deposits or cheques for all American adults earning up to $75,000 a year.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced further rollbacks to pandemic-era restrictions, including dropping late-night curfews on cinemas and casinos and a move that will allow indoor fitness classes to resume in New York City.

Additionally, five yellow zone clusters in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Queens will be lifted on March 22, the governor said on Wednesday, allowing for restrictions on social gatherings and houses of worship to be loosened.

Cuomo, who received his Covid-19 vaccine today at a church in Harlem, also said that from March 22, indoor fitness classes will be allowed to reopen statewide at 33 per cent capacity. The move is primarily aimed at allowing activities to resume in densely-populated New York City.

When the state last August set out reopening guidelines for gyms and fitness centres, it gave the option for chief executives of counties and the mayor of New York City to opt out of indoor fitness classes and postpone their resumption till a later date.

On April 5, an 11pm curfew for cinemas, casinos, bowling alleys and gyms will be lifted. An 11pm curfew for food and beverage at restaurants will remain in place, though. Both those curfews will be reviewed in late April.

In recent days, New York state has announced several moves aimed at loosening pandemic-era restrictions. Some of those have specifically affected New York City, such as a decision to increase the indoor dining limit to 50 per cent (effective March 19) and the dropping of a mandatory quarantine period for out-of-state travellers (effective April 1).

Mayor Bill de Blasio has said his office had not been consulted regarding some of those moves by the governor. The mayor’s office had not immediately replied to an emailed request from the Financial Times for comment on Wednesday’s announcement.

The Financial Times has been your guide to the pandemic since the first outbreak was detected over a year ago. Here are some of the developments we were reporting a year ago today:

• Wall Street rebounded as investors focused on policy efforts to counter the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak. The S&P 500 jumped 6 per cent, a day after it posted its worst slide since 1987

• Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube put out a first-of-its-kind joint statement saying they were working together to fight fraud and misinformation related to coronavirus

• European countries introduced fresh bans on short-selling stocks in a bid to calm investors following heavy falls on the region’s markets

• Sweden closed universities and schools for students aged over 16 but kept them open for younger children as the Scandinavian country faced questions about its crisis response

• A top World Health Organization doctor said that herd immunity might not be the right way to contain the coronavirus outbreak

• Uefa, European football’s governing body, postponed the Euro Championships until June 2021

• UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson began his daily press conferences, saying that without drastic measures to impede the progress of the coronavirus it would overwhelm any health system in the world. Chancellor Rishi Sunak said the UK government would backstop £330bn in loans and unleash billions of pounds in spending as part of an emergency package to help struggling businesses

• Leo Varadkar warned Ireland it faced the prospect of severe restrictions continuing “for months into the summer”

For all the latest on the pandemic, visit the FT’s coronavirus home page

Airline initial public offerings are taking off, fuelled by a jump in investor appetite for stocks expected to get a big lift from economic reopenings and an anticipated rebound in travel as Covid-19 vaccination programmes accelerate.

Investors on Wall Street sent shares of Apollo-backed Sun Country Airlines up more than 50 per cent in their debut on Wednesday, which came weeks after Norwegian start-up carrier Flyr listed in Oslo. It is shaping up to be one of the busiest two months in years for airline listings, with Frontier Airlines set to go public on the Nasdaq in the coming weeks.

Sun Country’s shares closed their first trading session at $36.38 on Wednesday, giving the company a market value of about $2bn. That was well above the $24 the shares were initially priced at on Tuesday and higher than the $21 to $23 range the Minneapolis-based budget airline had originally sought for its listing.

The offering was roughly 15 times subscribed, said people familiar with the deal.

Sun Country and Frontier are going public after a challenging year. Frontier booked a net loss of $225m last year, after earning $251m a year prior. Sun Country was able to retain more than half of its 2019 operating revenue throughout the past year, owing in large part due to a deal to fly cargo for Amazon. The decline in bookings nonetheless left it with a $4m loss.

Jude Bricker, Sun Country’s chief executive, said bookings have since climbed back to pre-coronavirus levels.

“We’re feeling really good about where we are and investors share that enthusiasm,” Bricker said. The IPO, he added, “was an opportunity for us. And we took it.”

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The Oxford start-up Vaccitech that owns the biotech platform behind the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has raised $168m, as it seeks to use similar technology to treat other infectious diseases and cancer. 

Vaccitech is preparing to go public in the coming months, according to a person familiar with the matter, after its latest round valued the start-up at about $425m after the fundraising.

The series B round was led by London-headquartered M&G Investment Management and investors included Californian biotech group Gilead Sciences, Chinese tech company Tencent and Monaco’s constitutional reserve fund.

Sarah Gilbert, a vaccines expert and co-founder of Vaccitech, led the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. The company is built on technology spun out of the University of Oxford and backed by Oxford Sciences Innovation, a fund trying to help the institution commercialise more of its intellectual property like US universities do. 

Read more here.

Federal Reserve officials sharply upgraded their growth forecasts for the world’s largest economy but signalled that they expected to keep interest rates close to zero until at least 2024.

The median estimate from Fed officials now forecasts that the US economy will grow 6.5 per cent this year, compared with 4.2 per cent in its December forecast.

The rosier projections from the Fed came at the end of a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday held against a backdrop of growing optimism about the US economy after Joe Biden’s $1.9tn fiscal stimulus and the country’s swift vaccination rollout.

Core inflation is expected to rise to 2.2 per cent, above the central bank’s 2 per cent target, compared with a smaller rise to 1.8 per cent forecast in December. The unemployment rate is now forecast to fall to 4.5 per cent by the end of the year instead of 5 per cent.

“Following a moderation in the pace of the recovery, indicators of economic activity and employment have turned up recently, although the sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic remain weak,” the FOMC said.

The FOMC made no changes to its ultra-loose monetary policy on Wednesday, pledging to maintain rock-bottom interest rates until the economy reached full employment, with inflation hitting 2 per cent and on track to exceed that target.

It also reiterated that it would continue to buy bonds at a rate of $120bn per month until “substantial further progress” was made towards its goals.

“The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus, including progress on vaccinations. The ongoing public health crisis continues to weigh on economic activity, employment, and inflation, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook,” the FOMC said.

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Twenty-five million people across the UK have now been vaccinated with the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, health secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday, with the latest evidence indicating that just one jab reduces the risk of death by 85 per cent. 

Speaking at the Downing Street briefing, Hancock said the latest evidence demonstrated that the “vaccine is safe and helps make you safe”.

The health secretary said that the latest studies reveal that just one dose of the vaccine reduces the risk of getting Covid-19 by 60 per cent, while the risk of being hospitalised is reduced by 80 per cent and of dying by 85 per cent.

Individuals who live with someone who has had the vaccine lower their risk of contracting the virus by 30 per cent, he added. Meanwhile, thanks to the vaccine rollout, about 90 per cent of people aged 70 and over now have Covid-19 antibodies needed to fight the virus, Hancock said.

Addressing concerns surrounding the supply of vaccines, the health secretary admitted that supply was “lumpy” but argued that the government was still on track to offer everyone in JCVI priority groups 1-9 by April 15. Over 50s have now been invited to come forward for their vaccinations, he added.

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, reiterated the safety of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine following the decision by some countries in Europe to suspend the rollout.

“We are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AZ vaccine outweigh the side effects. That is the official position of the European Regulator and ours,” he said. “Vaccines don’t save lives if they are in the fridge.”

The NHS has warned of a “significant reduction” in supplies of Covid-19 vaccines and ordered an embargo on new vaccination appointments for the whole of April that is set to delay the start of inoculations for under-50s.

In a letter to staff involved in the vaccination programme, Emily Lawson, NHS chief commercial officer, and Dr Nikki Kanani, medical director for Primary Care, said: “The government’s Vaccines Task Force have now notified us that there will be a significant reduction in weekly supply available from manufacturers beginning in the week commencing 29 March, meaning volumes for first doses will be significantly constrained.”

The task force “currently predict this will continue for a four-week period, as a result of reductions in national inbound vaccines supply”, they added. The need for second doses doubled from the beginning of April, they noted.

This supply constraint “means vaccination centres and community pharmacy-led local vaccination services should close unfilled bookings from the week commencing 29 March and ensure no further appointments are uploaded to the National Booking System or Local Booking Systems from 1 to 30 April”.

Matt Hancock, health secretary, played down the intervention as “a normal operational letter” at a Number 10 media briefing. He said “supply is always lumpy” and the government was on course to vaccinate all over-50s by April 15. “These supply schedules have moved up and down throughout this whole rollout and it is absolutely par for the course,” he said.

Asked about the delay to the start of vaccination for under-50s, he said all Britons would be vaccinated by the end of July.

Massachusetts plans to open up Covid-19 vaccinations to the general public in mid-April, Governor Charlie Baker has announced.

From March 22, people over the age of 60 and essential workers in sectors such as transit, grocery, utility, agriculture and public health will be able to register for their first shot, while vaccine eligibility will be broadened again on April 5 to include those aged 55 and older and individuals with medical conditions.

On April 19, the state’s third phase of vaccinations will begin, allowing any resident over the age of 16 to register for a Covid-19 vaccine.

Baker, a Republican, said the decision to speed up the rollout was helped by assurances that vaccine supply is increasing.

Several states have already committed to making the general public eligible for vaccination before the May 1 target set by President Joe Biden. Some governors have said they expect to meet that deadline, but have not laid out specific timelines.

Massachusetts, ranking 15th among states with a population of about 6.9m, has administered 2.6m vaccine doses since the start of the rollout, according to data on Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state has fully vaccinated 13.2 per cent of residents, ranking it equal-13th in the country and compared with an average of almost 12.6 per cent for all states.

The US travel industry is stepping up its lobbying for further government relief, holding 300 virtual meetings with members of Congress on Wednesday as it argues for more tax breaks to help restaurants, convention centres and entertainment venues. 

The pandemic cost 3m jobs in the travel industry last year and another 2.6m in industries that depend on it, the US Travel Association said as it released estimates that travel spending had plunged by almost $500bn, or 42 per cent, in 2020. 

“With the travel industry suffering such a disproportionate share of losses, policymakers need to understand that a nationwide economic recovery effectively hinges on a travel recovery,” USTA chief executive Roger Dow said. 

The industry is pressing lawmakers to extend the deadline for the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides loans to help businesses keep employees on their payroll, to May 31 from March 31. It is also lobbying for the bipartisan Hospitality and Commerce Job Recovery Act, whose measures include a temporary tax credit designed to boost conventions and trade shows, a business expense deduction to help entertainment venues, individual tax credit to stimulate leisure travel and tax relief for restaurants.

Disney is set to reopen its California theme park on April 30, after shuttering its gates more than a year ago because of the pandemic.

“The day all of us have long been waiting for is almost here,” said Ken Potrock, president of the Disneyland Resort.

The world’s largest entertainment group has been pummeled by the pandemic, which forced the closure of cinemas and theme parks, undercutting two of its most profitable businesses. Before the coronavirus disruption, Disney in the fiscal year 2019 made nearly $7bn in operating income — almost half the total — from its parks, experiences and products business.

The company in September cut 28,000 theme park jobs in the US, which it blamed partly on California’s government officials for forbidding Disneyland to reopen.

The Disneyland park will initially open at 15 per cent capacity, chief executive Bob Chapek told CNBC.

Disney’s operating income shrunk 67 per cent to $1.3bn in the most recent quarter, and would have been $2.6bn higher without the effects of the pandemic, it said.

The US will not have to throw away tens of millions of doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine, a senior regulator has insisted, even as they remain in storage awaiting approval.

Peter Marks, head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration, said on Wednesday there was no risk of the doses expiring, even as EU officials push Joe Biden’s administration to be granted access to them.

Marks told a Congressional committee: “We do not necessarily have expiration dates on products under investigation to drug applications when they are maintained on stability studies, and so I do not believe at this time we are at risk of throwing that vaccine out any time in the near future.”

The US’s stockpile has been at the centre of recent tensions between the US and the EU. With production lagging behind in Europe, officials in Brussels have been pushing the Biden administration to allow them to import US-made doses, which cannot be distributed as the vaccine has not been approved.

Marks did not comment on the possible export of such doses, but his comments suggest US officials can continue to stockpile them indefinitely while waiting for them to be authorised, a decision that is likely to come next month.

US high school pupils should be able to get vaccinated against Covid-19 in time for the next school year, one of the country’s top public health officials has said.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday he thought children over the age of 12 should be able to receive inoculations later in the year, with safety trials already under way.

Dr Fauci said: “We will not have to prove in an efficacy trial that they work, we just need to show that it’s safe, and that it induces a comparable immune response that we know correlates with protection for high school students.

“It looks like they will be available to get vaccinated in the beginning of the fall, very likely for the full term with regard to children.”

Dr Fauci added that vaccines would be tested on younger children over the coming months, and should be available to children over the age of 2 by the end of next March.

Poland is to impose a three-week national lockdown in an effort to stem a surge in coronavirus infections.

Shopping centres, hotels, cinemas, theatres and museums are to close from Saturday, health minister Adam Niedzielski said. Schools will switch to remote learning while gyms and swimming pools will also close.

“Unfortunately the third wave is growing and accelerating,” Niedzielski told a press conference. “We have to take decisive steps.”

The measures were unveiled after Poland recorded its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the start of the year. More than 25,000 new infections were reported in the past 24 hours, 74 per cent more than the previous day. Another 453 individuals died from the virus.

The surge has put renewed strain on Poland’s health system. About 21,500 people are in hospital with Covid-19, and almost 2,200 are on ventilators.

Brazil has overtaken the US as the country with the highest Covid-19 death rate and new case rate, according to a report from the World Health Organization.

According to the health agency, Latin America’s largest nation had a 20 per cent increase in the number of reported new cases last week compared with the previous week to reach more than 230 infections per 100,000 people. This compares with 139 new cases per 100,000 in the US.

Brazil also reported the highest number of new deaths in the world at 5.8 deaths per 100,000 people — greater than the US, which has reported 2.8 new deaths per 100,000 and South Africa with 1.0 new deaths per 100,000.

The country has been hit with the more contagious P.1 strain, which may be able to sidestep the natural immunity developed by people who have already contracted the virus.

Officials in Brasília reported 2,841 deaths on Tuesday — the most fatalities in a day since the start of the pandemic in March last year. More than 280,000 Brazilians have died from Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, the second highest death toll in the world after the US, which has recorded more than 536,000 deaths.

AstraZeneca and one of its key European suppliers have defended the quality of their Covid-19 vaccine production process after the EU drugs regulator said it was investigating whether there could have been manufacturing defects in specific batches.

The European Medicines Agency inquiry follows reports of possible side-effects, including blood clots, that have led to at least 16 European countries suspending or limiting use of the shot. The EMA has said it was unlikely the reported adverse events were connected to the vaccine or to specific batches but that a link could not yet be ruled out.

AstraZeneca said each batch of vaccine was subject to “more than 40 different quality control tests” between the laboratory and people’s arms.

“Every batch made in our supply network must meet the same exacting production and quality standards. Regular quality control testing is carried out at every stage of production, to ensure the production process is well controlled and results are consistently within required levels,” the company said in response to questions. “Each of these tests have been validated and has a specific step-by-step process that must be carried out.”

One of AstraZeneca’s “fill and finish facilities”, where the drug product is manufactured and put into vials, is the Anagni plant in Italy, run by US company Catalent. That plant produced two of the batches that initially triggered the suspension of vaccinations in Austria and Italy, ABV 5300 and ABV 2856.

Mario Gargiulo, the president of the European biologics division of Catalent, told the Financial Times that every batch shipped from Anagni had met rigorous quality specifications and testing.

“All documentation and quality assessments pertaining to these batches were once again reviewed by Catalent, AstraZeneca, and the Italian [drugs] regulator, AIFA,” he said.

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A first shipment of thousands of coronavirus vaccines from the World Health Organization’s Covax initiative have arrived in the occupied West Bank, which remains in a near-complete lockdown as hospitals struggle with demand.

The 38,000 doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine will immediately be given to healthcare workers and those over 75 years old. However, officials will delay administering the 24,000 shots of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab as they consider the decision by some EU nations to halt its use.

The shipment of a total of 62,000 jabs comes months after Israel launched its BioNTech/Pfizer-driven vaccination drive. Most of Israel’s adults have been inoculated, which led to its economy re-opening last week.

That contrasts with a deadly third wave of infections in the occupied territories, especially in the West Bank, where a feeble healthcare system has buckled under the more contagious B 1.1.7 variant.

Israel has refused to share its extra doses of Moderna and planned shipments of AstraZeneca with the 5m Palestinians living in areas it occupies, rejecting suggestions that it is obliged by international law to care for the health of the Palestinian population.

It says instead that the Oslo Accords, signed in 1993, transferred that responsibility to the Palestinian Authority, which has limited self-rule in heavily populated areas. It has, though, vaccinated 90,000 low-wage Palestinian workers who have permits to work in Israel, mostly at construction sites.

Israel has more vaccines than it will use, and millions more en route as a result of simultaneous orders with the three major manufacturers, at a cost of at least $1bn, the health ministry told the Knesset on Tuesday.

It has delivered 2,000 of the 5,000 Moderna doses promised to the Palestinian Authority. Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza have received 20,000 doses of Sputnik V from the United Arab Emirates.

The rate of new home construction in the US hit its slowest pace in six months, as builders grappled with record-high lumber prices and harsh winter weather across the country.

Housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.42m in February, down 10.3 per cent from the previous month and the lowest level since August, according to data published by the US Census Bureau on Wednesday.

Economists had expected housing starts to be down only slightly from January, estimating a February rate of 1.56m units.

While housing demand remains strong, homebuilders have faced increasing cost pressure due to rising lumber and land prices. A winter blast in the central US and other parts of the country last month also put a damper on construction.

The National Association of Home Builders’ index measuring confidence in the sector fell to a seven-month low in March, reflecting concerns about the increase in costs and a recent uptick in mortgage rates.

The real-estate market has otherwise been a bright spot for the US economy as it continues its recovery from coronavirus shutdowns. Buyers have flocked to the market during the pandemic in search of roomier homes in the suburbs and taken advantage of mortgage rates that plumbed record lows. The surge in demand has fuelled a shortage of available homes, driving up prices.

Building permits – a gauge of future construction – dropped 10.8 per cent from January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.68m. However, they were up 17 per cent year on year.

The European Commission chief has warned that the EU is ready to invoke emergency controls on coronavirus vaccine production and distribution on its soil if needed to deal with the pandemic.

Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc was considering “all options” to ensure that “Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible”, in a sign of anger that the EU exports jabs to the US and UK but receives none from them.

“All options are on the table,” von der Leyen told reporters on Wednesday. “We are in the crisis of the century. I am not ruling out anything for now because we have to make sure that Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible.”

The commission president was responding to a question about whether the EU should activate Article 122 of its treaty, which allows it to take “measures appropriate to the economic situation” if “severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products”.

The EU’s 27 heads of state and government are due to hold talks on vaccines at a summit next week.

Boris Johnson has said he will be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, moving to shore up public confidence after several European countries suspended its use over questions about side-effects.

The UK prime minister, 56, told parliament he would “very shortly” have his first dose. NHS England earlier called up another 2m people to be inoculated.

Germany, France and several other European countries have suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine, awaiting further details about a handful of individuals who developed blood clots after receiving it.

The World Health Organization has said no evidence exists that the jab had caused the adverse effects.

Asked by a Tory MP about supposed “disinformation” about the vaccine in some EU states, Johnson said his own dose was “the best thing I can say” about the matter.

“I finally got news that I’m going to have my own jab very shortly,” he said. “It will certainly be Oxford/AstraZeneca that I will be having.”

A key US government bond yield rose to its highest level since February 2020 as markets turned jittery ahead of the conclusion of the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, gained as much as 0.04 percentage points to 1.67 per cent in early Wall Street trading on Wednesday as investors sold the debt.

The rise in yields is notable since trading in the $21tn market is typically tame ahead of the central bank’s policy decisions. Investors expect the Fed will upgrade its economic growth forecasts to reflect a turbocharged recovery for the US economy from the pandemic.

Borrowing costs have been rising, with the 10-year yield increasing from about 0.9 per cent at the start of this year, as markets anticipated a jolt of inflation from President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus and the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.

Futures tracking the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 index slipped 1 per cent. Higher interest rates have dealt a blow to shares in rapidly growing companies because they reduce the current value of future income streams.

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Stonegate, the UK’s largest pub company, has reported a £746m pre-tax loss after coronavirus regulations forced it to close the majority of its pubs and turn to investors and debt markets for an extra £1.4bn of funding.

The group, which owns the Slug and Lettuce and Craft Union chains, said that it expected normal trading to return from July this year but warned that if there was another lockdown in the winter it would have to consider raising more debt or selling assets.

The accounts, published at Companies House, show that Stonegate’s revenues fell 17 per cent to £707m in the year to the end of September 2020.

During that period pubs were closed between March and July but Stonegate said that it had slashed costs and benefited from £70m in state support with £62m income from the furlough scheme, £4m from the government’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ initiative last summer and £3m from business rates relief.

The group, which is owned by private equity firm TDR Capital, was pushed to a £746m pre-tax loss as a result of depreciation on its estate and financing costs resulting from its £3bn acquisition of pub company Ei Group in 2019. The combined company now operates 4,708 pubs, making it the UK’s largest pub business. It has 15,900 employees.

NHS England has called up all those aged 50 and over who have not yet been vaccinated for a Covid-19 jab, as the health service marks 100 days since it administered the world's first coronavirus jab outside clinical trials. 

The NHS has delivered a vaccine to more than 20m people since December 8. It will send more than 2m texts and letters inviting those aged between 50 and 54 for a jab in the latest stage of its inoculation campaign. 

The number of slots booked almost doubled from 340,000 on March 7 to 609,000 on March 9 in a “significant boost to bookings last week”, NHS England said on Wednesday.

Supply has fluctuated, said Nikki Kanani, NHS England's primary care director, as the number of vaccines available to the service "will continue to go up and down week by week and month by month".

"But this week and next we have larger supplies," she added, "so we want anyone in the top priority groups – people aged 50 and older as well as those working in health and care and anyone with an underlying health condition – to come forward."

Poland has reported its highest daily coronavirus case count this year as a third wave of the pandemic sweeps through central Europe.

The EU’s fifth most populous member state recorded 25,052 new infections in the past 24 hours, 74 per cent more than a day earlier. Another 453 individuals died from the virus.

The latest surge in cases has prompted concerns that officials could reintroduce a nationwide lockdown. About 21,500 people are in hospital with the virus and almost 2,200 are on ventilators.

In total, Poland, which has a population of 38m, has recorded 1.9m infections and 48,000 deaths.

The Federal Reserve is poised to upgrade its forecasts for the US economy on Wednesday, pointing to an acceleration of America’s recovery from the pandemic that will test the central bank’s willingness to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy in the years ahead. 

At the end of a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, economists are expecting the central bank to make a significant upgrade to its December prediction that the US would grow by 4.2 per cent this year, with core inflation at 1.8 per cent and the unemployment rate dropping to 5 per cent. 

Many private sector economists have already upgraded their forecasts on the back of President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus and a faster vaccine rollout, with more than 2.4m Americans receiving a jab each day.

Although the Fed is not expected to make any big policy changes on Wednesday, more upbeat projections are likely to intensify investor debate over when the central bank will start removing its support for the economy.

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A quarter of individuals with signs of coronavirus fail to take tests and more than a third of adults are unable to identify the three main symptoms, a UK study has found.

The authors called on the authorities to do more to improve public knowledge and access to testing, more than a year into the pandemic that has caused nearly 150,000 deaths in the country.

Claire Steves, the lead scientist of the Zoe Covid Symptom Study, urged the UK government to ensure that everybody understands that if they feel unwell they should act as if they have Covid-19 and get a test.

She also called on the government to extend the list of symptoms. “Focusing NHS testing solely on people experiencing cough, fever and loss or change in smell risks missing many thousands of cases,” added Steves, reader at King’s College London.

The NHS is administering the biggest mass vaccination campaign in its history, yet scientists said effective testing remained crucial to containing the pandemic especially as lockdown restrictions are eased.

Almost half of individuals experiencing any of the main symptoms did not realise this qualified them for an NHS test, the study found. The older the respondent, the less likely they were to know that these symptoms meant they could seek a test.

“It’s concerning that there is still such a lack of knowledge,” said Mark Graham, research fellow at King’s College London.

Researchers at King’s and the Zoe Covid Symptom study analysed the results of tests and nearly 250m daily health reports from more than 4m contributors.

Knowledge was “heavily” age dependent, they found. More than half of those over 65 were unable to identify the classic symptoms compared with less than 30 per cent between 18 and 45 years old.

The study showed that people experiencing only one of the three main symptoms, or with symptoms for a day or two, were less likely to get a test.

Over the past 12 months Covid-19 has curtailed countless business activities, but not money laundering. The UN estimates that $1.6tn is laundered every year, and authorities say lockdown measures have presented criminals with even greater opportunities to commit offences. But why is this, and what are countries doing to fight back?

More than half of managers in the UK want to be allowed to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for staff returning to work, according to a survey that adds to pressure on the government to support “jabs for jobs” to help accelerate the reopening of the battered British economy. 

Close to half also said that office access should be restricted for those who refused to get a vaccination on non-medical grounds, the national poll conducted by the Chartered Management Institute of more than 1,000 managers found.

Three-fifths of managers have already decided to make testing available for their employees when they are allowed to return to the office — with a fifth saying this will become mandatory to return to work.

Ann Francke, CMI chief executive, said: “Managers have shown a significant level of support for mass testing and vaccinations. And widespread take up would allow for a swift and safe return to work.”

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Hargreaves Lansdown said that profits for the year would be higher than expected, as stay-at-home investors generated greater volumes of share dealing in the first weeks of 2021.

The group now expects pre-tax profits for the year ending June 30 to be “modestly above” the top end of analyst expectations, which it said ranged between £334m and £360m.

Trading on the UK’s largest investment platform in January showed “strong” dealing volumes and “robust” net new business and client numbers.

That boost in trading was similar to previous coronavirus-induced lockdown periods, the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

Since the end of January, Hargreaves has sustained “elevated volumes of share dealing”, with an increased proportion towards international equities, driven by interest in US stocks from existing clients.

Shares in Hargreaves have risen 1.6 per cent this year, lifting its gains to 8 per cent for the past 12 months. Wall Street’s S&P 500 has risen 5.5 per cent this year.

The financial services company said in February that its pre-tax profit rose by a tenth in the six months to December to £188m, compared with the same period a year earlier, as younger customers tried their hand at investing for the first time.

UK funeral director Dignity sank to a loss last year even though the coronavirus pandemic caused a sharp rise in the death toll.

The company fell to a loss before tax of £19.6m in the 12 months to December 25, compared with a profit of £44.1m in 2019, even as Covid-19 resulted in a 14 per cent rise in the number of UK deaths.

While revenue increased 4 per cent to £314.1m, higher personal protective equipment costs and government limits on how many people can attend funerals had contributed to the loss, Dignity said.

Dignity does not expect to pay a dividend until it has returned to a “sustainable and stable financial footing”.

The company said the most difficult period of the year had been the second quarter, when there was a 47 per cent year-on-year rise in deaths.

The UK’s total 663,000 deaths over 2020 was the most in a single year since 1918, according to Dignity.

A statutory public inquiry into the UK’s handling of coronavirus would be “premature” before the economy reopens, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has said.

Ministers committed last summer to holding an independent inquiry. The move would be likely to bring scrutiny of the country’s preparedness, the availability of personal protective equipment in the early stages of the pandemic and the timing of lockdown, among other government decisions.

Polling for the Guardian published on Wednesday found that public support for such a probe is running more than twice as high as opposition.

But a date has yet to be set and Kwarteng said it was too early to provide one.

“Once the economy is reopened, once we’ve got through the worst of the pandemic . . . we can have a debate and I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of room for an inquiry,” he told Sky News.

“It seems premature to launch an inquiry when the pandemic is still all around us.”

SSP Group, owner of Caffè Ritazza and Upper Crust, is to raise £475m in a rights issue as it looks to shore up its balance sheet following the pandemic.

Many of the chain’s 2,700 outlets are in airports and train stations and the group has been hit hard by travel restrictions over the past year.

The company said on Monday that the money raised in the fully underwritten rights issue would “cover liquidity in a reasonable worst case scenario”.

It also said it had extended bank facilities by two years to 2024 and secured waivers and modifications of debt covenants.

However it also sounded a cautious note about the outlook for the rest of the year: “New variants of the virus, vaccine supply constraints and various lockdown and travel restrictions mean that the pace of the recovery in 2021 has been delayed relative to the group’s expectations towards the end of 2020,” SSP said in a statement.

It added that it did not expect a full return to pre-Covid passenger numbers until its 2024 financial year.

Capita is seeking to raise £400m from asset sales as it warned that the Covid-19 pandemic and a loss of local government contracts had slowed the recovery of the business, one of the British government’s largest suppliers.

Revenues fell to £3.3bn in 2020, down from £3.7bn the previous year, as coronavirus-induced lockdown measures affected its travel, leisure and events business where it is paid according to the volume of customers served. The company reported a pre-tax loss of £49.4m in 2020, narrower than its £63m loss in 2019.

Capita is one of the government’s biggest contractors, running the London congestion charging zone, collecting the BBC licence fee, administering the Department for Work and Pensions’ universal credit scheme, and providing security tags for offenders.

The company, which benefited from a drive to get private sector companies to run public services, has been trying to recover after growing too quickly through acquisitions and taking on a succession of difficult contracts. In 2018 it raised £700m in a rights issue following multiple profit warnings but the company is struggling with a £1.07bn debt mountain.

The head of Australia’s medical products regulator said on Wednesday he had heard nothing to indicate that the rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine should be delayed.

Professor John Skerritt told ABC radio that he and his colleagues had discussed the issue with counterparts in 16 countries during a Tuesday videoconference.

“And it’s quite clear that the largest countries that have rolled out the vaccine — such as the UK with 11m doses and even some left-field countries such as Saudi Arabia who have rolled out 1m doses and have quite a sophisticated monitoring system — have not seen any problems,” he said. 

The problems seem to have been limited to reports in Denmark, Germany and Norway, he added.

“It's important to emphasise that Europe as a whole, the European Medicines Agency, is still strongly promoting that the rollout should continue,” said Skerritt, head of Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration. 

Several European countries, including Germany, France and the Netherlands, have paused their use of the jab.

The EMA and the World Health Organization have both said no evidence exists that the severe adverse events were caused by the vaccine.

Samsung Electronics has sounded the alarm over a “serious imbalance” in the semiconductor industry, the latest warning that a chip shortage disrupting carmakers threatens to spill over into the broader technology sector. 

The signal from the Seoul-based group — the world’s biggest computer chip manufacturer and a linchpin in the global tech supply chain — came as governments and companies expressed concerns that shortfalls in the semiconductor market might slow the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. 

“There’s a serious imbalance in supply and demand of chips in the IT sector globally . . . It is hard to say the shortage issue has been solved 100 per cent,” Koh Dong-jin, co-chief executive who heads Samsung’s mobile business unit, said at a shareholder meeting on Wednesday. 

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Taiwan health authorities on Wednesday said a “travel bubble” had been established with the South Pacific island nation of Palau to kickstart tourism in both locations.

In a statement, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control said the initial plan called for two flights a week with no more than 110 passengers on each aircraft.

Trip durations would be limited to eight days for passengers in either direction.

The TCDC said departing tourists would be required to undergo a polymerase chain reaction test for Covid-19, and only those testing negative would be allowed to go.

Passengers on inbound flights from Palau would be required to show a negative PCR test result taken no more than three days before departure.

Palau, a US territory until 1981, is an archipelago of 340 islands located about 2,300 kilometres south-east of Taiwan.

Its economy is heavily dependent on tourism, especially diving and snorkelling.

The US Federal Reserve is poised to upgrade its forecasts for America’s economy on Wednesday, pointing to an accelerating recovery from the pandemic that will test the central bank’s willingness to maintain ultra-loose monetary policy in the years ahead.

At the end of a two-day meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, economists are expecting the central bank to make a significant upgrade to its December prediction that the US would grow by 4.2 per cent this year, with core inflation at 1.8 per cent and the unemployment rate dropping to 5 per cent.

Many private sector economists have already upgraded their forecasts on the back of President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus and a faster vaccine rollout, with more than 2.4m Americans receiving a jab each day.

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The US has threatened regulatory action against Hong Kong airlines, including Cathay Pacific, arguing the Chinese territory’s quarantine arrangements are anti-competitive.

Last month, the Hong Kong government introduced a new quarantine policy on aircrew returning to the city. This requires any crew wishing to leave Hong Kong airport to undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine and then an additional seven days of medical surveillance before working on the next flight.

The US Department of Transportation, headed by former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, released an order demanding Cathay, Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express send them flight schedules and other information about their cargo and passenger flights.

“Otherwise, the department may have no choice but to consider regulatory action,” the order stated.

The US agency said Hong Kong’s requirements disproportionately harm the ability of US airlines such as FedEx, which had about 180 crew members based in Hong Kong, to compete with Cathay, the department said. 

Were the US to cut off Cathay flights with Hong Kong it would have a serious impact on the transfer of cargo to the territory. 

Cathay said it has also been harmed by the Hong Kong government policy.

The airline said last week that the new Hong Kong measures had been extremely costly, and reduced their passenger capacity even further in February compared with the month before by 60 per cent and cargo capacity by 25 per cent. 

“[It has led to] an increase in cash burn of about HK$300m-400m (US$38m-51m) per month [in addition to] the previous HK$1bn-1.5bn range,” Patrick Healy, the company's chairman, said.  

Chinese biotechnology company WuXi Biologics on Wednesday said it would buy Pfizer’s only biosimilars plant in China, as the Chinese pharmaceuticals contract manufacturer expands capacity to meet surging coronavirus-driven demand.

Hong Kong-listed WuXi said in a statement that it expects the transaction to take over the Hangzhou city-based plant and its workforce to be complete in the first half of this year.

Opened in 2018, the facility was Pfizer’s single base for the manufacturing and packaging of living organism-based pharmaceuticals. The American company still operates three other facilities in China that make generic drugs.

Chris Chen, chief executive of WuXi Biologics, said that the addition of the facility would help address the surging global demands for pharmaceutical development and manufacturing which are “in urgent need now”.

The Chinese group has rapidly expanded its client-base and production since the start of the pandemic, buying facilities in Europe and the US, with an aim of having 300,000 litres of capacity after 2023.

WuXi’s shares hit record highs earlier this year after the group’s former parent, Biologics Holdings, sold nearly 124m shares, most of which were bought by international investors. 

It has since fallen from nearly HK$125 in mid-February to below HK$90. The share price stood at HK$89.75 in early afternoon trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday, down 1.64 per cent.

Singapore’s health ministry said on Wednesday it would add seven more vaccination centres, as it prepares to roll out the Moderna jab to its residents.

The city-state already has 24 specialised Covid-19 vaccination centres in operation, and authorities expect there will be a total of 40 centres open by mid-April. 

Another 42 clinics are also able to provide shots to the south-east Asian country’s 5.7m people.

Four of the seven vaccination centres soon to open will administer the Moderna vaccine, the ministry said. 

The other vaccination centres and clinics would continue to offer the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, but more would switch to Moderna as supplies become available.

India recorded this year’s highest daily case count on Tuesday with 28,869 new infections as cases continue to rise. 

Narendra Modi, prime minister, is due to hold a videoconference with state chief ministers later on Wednesday to discuss the strategy to tackle the new wave of infections that has hit several large states, including Maharashtra and Gujarat. 

India’s daily inoculations surpassed 3m jabs on Monday, the health ministry said, adding that more than 10m people aged over 60 have received a vaccine in the past 15 days.

Although vaccination is now gathering pace, progress has remained slow. 

Newspaper reports said only about 50 per cent of healthcare and other frontline workers prioritised for inoculation in the first phase have been vaccinated.     

India is currently giving jabs to its population aged over 60 and those over 45 with serious illnesses, but hospitals say their capacities are under-utilised. 

Many experts have called for expanding vaccination to the wider population following a new surge in daily infections. 

China has offered coronavirus vaccines to foreign journalists based in the country, as Beijing accelerates inoculations in order to jab 560m people by the end of June.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed news outlets on Wednesday by email that foreign correspondents under the age of 60 could apply to receive two shots of an inactivated Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm, a state-owned pharmaceutical group, at Rmb90 ($13.85) per shot.

In early March, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a state agency, instructed officials to accelerate vaccination efforts in a bid to cover two-fifths of the population by the end of June end and 64 per cent by the end of the year.

On Tuesday, China approved its fifth domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine: a jab created by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical and the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, despite not yet releasing efficacy results from final-stage clinical trials. 

China’s vaccination programme has lagged behind that of developed nations on a jabs-per-person basis, despite the country having begun administering vaccines in a limited use programme in July last year. 

Foreigners living in China have mostly been unable to receive the jabs, which are provided without charge to Chinese citizens deemed by authorities to be high risk.

A lack of urgency due to successful virus containment policies, limited vaccine production capacity and restrictions on under 18s or over 59s receiving jabs meant that China missed a target of 50m inoculations by the lunar new year last month.

Singapore last year recorded its sharpest employment contraction in more than two decades, official figures showed.

Overall employment, excluding foreign domestic workers, shrank by 166,600 in 2020, according to the labour ministry. 

Non-residents accounted for all of the employment decline, losing 181,500 positions.

Singapore resident employment rebounded by 14,900 jobs to slightly above pre-pandemic levels, as a result of improvements in the second half of the year.

Resident employment grew in public administration and education, health and social services, information and communications, finance and insurance and professional services.

The hardest hit sectors were tourism and aviation, the Ministry of Manpower said.

In addition to Singapore citizens and permanent residents, many people classed as non-residents work in the city-state. They are issued permits for short-term and daily employment, mostly from neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia.

HSBC has temporarily closed its main office in Hong Kong after an outbreak at a local gym spread through the city’s vital financial services sector.

The Norman Foster-designed building in the heart of the city’s Central district was subject to a compulsory testing notice from health authorities on Tuesday night after at least three workers tested positive. 

All staff present at the building for more than two hours from March 3-16 must be tested, the government said.

Hong Kong has had to introduce such measures, as well as “ambush lockdowns” in which residential blocks are sealed off by police when sewage samples test positive, as residents have been hesitant about getting tested for Covid-19.

The hesitancy stems from a government policy under which people who test positive or are considered a close contact of someone who does are sent to either hospital or compulsory government-run quarantine centres.

The bank said it had contingency plans in place to make sure critical services could be maintained. 

On Tuesday, the city’s Centre for Health Protection said it was investigating 18 additional confirmed cases of Covid-19, taking the number of cases in Hong Kong to 11,330.

“Among the newly reported cases announced, five are imported cases, two are local cases with unknown sources while the remaining 11 cases are epidemiologically linked with local cases,” CHP said in a statement.

A total of 292 cases have been recorded in Hong Kong in the 14 days to March 15, including 228 locally transmitted cases.

Of the local cases, 57 are from unknown sources, CHP added.

British Steel is poised to announce the resignation of its chief executive just over a year after the company was rescued from bankruptcy by a Chinese investor.

Ron Deelen became acting head of British Steel when it entered liquidation in 2019, with the appointment made permanent following its takeover by the industrial conglomerate Jingye Group.

The Dutchman’s departure comes at a difficult moment, as the coronavirus pandemic has worsened conditions for Britain’s long-struggling steel industry, with the future of the country’s third-largest producer in doubt.

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A new surge of coronavirus cases has been caused by complacency owing to the imminent arrival of vaccines, the head of the Philippines’ inoculation task force said on Tuesday.

Failure to adhere to health protocols and the emergence of new variants was also contributing, vaccine tsar Carlito Galvez told the Philippine News Agency.

“When people found out that the vaccines are arriving, we noticed that they have relaxed,” Galvez told a briefing. 

He said people should “make it an obligation” to wear masks and face shields as well as practising social distancing at all times.

“We cannot equate the rise of Covid-19 cases to the economic opening as we see there could be more lapses on the observation of the minimum health standards, that people became complacent following the arrival of the vaccines,” Galvez said.

He also cited the exposure of some Filipinos from abroad to the new variants as another factor in the increasing cases.

The south-east Asian archipelago of 108m people has registered a total of 631,320 infections as of Tuesday.

New Zealand has begun administering second vaccinations to border and quarantine workers, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

More than 500 of the estimated 15,000 people in the sectors have received the second dose, while at least 90 per cent have received their first jab.

“It’s important for them to get the vaccine and to add another layer of protection for them and their families and our community,” said Jim Bliss, the country’s head of quarantine and isolation facilities.

“From my own experiences in the army, serving overseas, the number of communities that don’t have the opportunity to get vaccinated takes a terrible toll on a population,” he added.

New Zealand reported just three new imported Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, in arrivals from the US, Singapore and Iran via the United Arab Emirates.

All three are in isolation, the ministry said.

Just 5,500 visitors arrived in Hong Kong during February, a 97.2 per cent drop year on year, the semiautonomous Chinese city’s tourism agency said.

The Hong Kong Tourism Board said monthly visitor arrivals dropped from 3.2m in January 2020 to 200,000 the next month, as the pandemic gathered pace.

The board said it welcomed the Hong Kong government’s decision to declare employees in tourism-related sectors as a priority group for Covid-19 vaccinations.

“Getting the pandemic under control is one of the key factors for resuming cross-border travel between Hong Kong and other regions,” said YK Pang, the board’s chairman.

Europe’s top banking supervisor has said lenders could be given more time to benefit from capital relief if they speed up their recognition of loans that are likely to turn sour.

Andrea Enria, chair of the European Central Bank’s supervisory board, made the comment as he called on eurozone lenders to be bolder in booking provisions for an expected rush of bad loans caused by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference on Tuesday, Enria compared the rapid speed at which US banks increased their loan loss provisions with the slower pace in Europe. “It is crucial that banks recognise credit impairments without delay,” he added.

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Canada said on Tuesday it would allow some temporary foreign agricultural workers to bypass quarantine requirements to ensure the country’s food security.

The government said it would allow asymptomatic arrivals to quarantine near their workplace instead of on arrival in government-authorised accommodation.

“Asymptomatic [workers] will be able to travel directly to their place of quarantine after getting a Covid-19 test at the airport provided they travel by private transportation and are accompanied only by others who travelled with them to Canada,” Employment and Social Development Canada said in a statement.

Those who needed to travel further to another location after arriving in Canada would be required to stay in quarantine and await the results of their test, the agency added. 

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada last year introduced a programme to offset some of the costs related to mandatory 14-day quarantine for workers by up to C$1,500 per person.

Most seasonal workers in Canada come from Mexico, although seasonal labourers from Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Guatemala, Philippines and Thailand also work on farms and in fisheries and processing plants. 

Montana plans to open vaccine eligibility to all adults from the start of next month, giving a boost to the state’s vaccination rollout that is among the quickest in the US.

Greg Gianforte, governor, said on Tuesday that all Montanans aged 16 and older will be eligible to receive a Covid-19 shot from April 1.

The move by Big Sky Country will have it open vaccine eligibility to all adults a full month before the May 1 date President Joe Biden has targeted for all Americans.

Ohio earlier on Tuesday became the biggest state by population to commit to hitting that target and will allow all residents aged 16 and older to register for a Covid-19 vaccine from March 29.

Montana, with a population of about 1m that ranks it 44th in the US, has fully vaccinated 14.3 per cent of its residents, according to data on Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That ranks it equal-eighth in the country and compares to the state average of almost 12.6 per cent.

The elite US law firm Latham & Watkins posted record revenue of $4.3bn last year, among the highest-ever for a law firm, following a surge in demand during the pandemic.

California-based Latham boosted revenue by 15 per cent and increased profit per equity partner by 20 per cent for the 12 months to December.

Its 524 equity partners reaped an average $4.5m apiece as business surged across areas including restructuring and private equity.

Managing partner Rich Trobman said: “Demand for our services — spanning our transactional, litigation and regulatory practices — grew significantly as clients turned to us across our platform worldwide.”

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The Hong Kong government said on Tuesday it would extend social distancing and business hours restrictions for restaurants for another two weeks until March 31.

Under the rules, outlets must suspend business after 10pm, operate at no more than half capacity and limit customers to four per table.

Bars and clubs remain shut.

Patrons are required to register their arrival and departure using the government's LeaveHomeSafe app, or provide written details to the restaurant.

The government of Papua New Guinea said on Tuesday it would restrict movement without imposing a full lockdown, as coronavirus infections in the Pacific country soared.

PNG on Tuesday recorded 82 positive cases from 91 tests processed in a day, leading the Australian state of Queensland to suspend charter flights from the OK Tedi copper and gold mine, one of the country’s biggest employers.

Of the most recent 500 swabs taken from PNG residents by Australian health workers, 250 of those came back positive, according to Queensland health officials.

James Marape, prime minister, warned that the country’s official total of 2,269 Covid-19 cases, including 26 deaths, was an undercount as it was based on those who showed up for testing.

Only 54,410 of PNG’s 9m people have been tested, said police Chief Superintendent Dominic Kakas, the country’s Covid-19 task force spokesman.

“Community transmission has taken place. It has broken loose. We need to contain it from further spreading,” Marape said.

“If we don’t [take a] proactive response to this, our health system will be clogged and we might not be able to sustain the outbreak that is taking place right now.”

He said health authorities were looking at “city by city or city and town, province by province, stopping people from moving in and out”.

The country’s maritime borders with Australia and the Solomon Islands have been closed.

Marape urged people to remain in their districts and villages. He said the police and military would ensure people and public transport follow public health measures.

There are concerns of a surge in cases after mass gatherings were held at the weekend to commemorate Sir Michael Somare, PNG’s first prime minister, who died last month.

Officials in Australia, which ran PNG affairs until independence in 1975, said they were monitoring the virus’s progress. Scott Morrison, Australian prime minister, said vaccines were being rushed to PNG to inoculate frontline health workers.

“I’m very concerned about the situation in PNG and we’re watching that very closely and actively,” Dr Paul Kelly, Australia’s chief medical officer, said on Tuesday.

He said vaccination has begun in the Torres Strait, which separates the two countries. “They're currently vaccinating in Saibai Island, one of the islands in the Torres Strait very close to the PNG mainland,” Kelly said.

Two cases of a new Covid-19 variant, originating from the Philippines, have been identified in the UK, Public Health England said on Tuesday. The variant, called P.3, was reported by the Philippines on March 9, and includes mutations around the spike protein – which the virus uses to enter human cells – that have been found in other strains.

The US has administered more than 110m doses of coronavirus vaccines, bringing shots to nearly 65 per cent of people who are 65 years old or over. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday that 72.1m Americans have received at least one dose  and 39m people, or 11.8 per cent of the country, are fully vaccinated.

The number of US adults experiencing psychological distress is slightly lower since the start of the pandemic, according to a survey from Pew Research Center. About 21 per cent of US adults reported high distress — anxiety, sleeplessness, depression, loneliness and physical symptoms — in February, compared with 24 per cent in March 2020.

Mexico expects an answer from Washington on Friday about whether the US will share some of its stock of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines. “We’re getting a reply on Friday and we will announce the details then, but I’d say things are progressing well,” Marcelo Ebrard, Mexican foreign minister, said on Tuesday.

Moderna has begun to test its Covid-19 vaccine on children aged 6 months to 12 years, the youngest participants in a trial to date. The Boston-based biotechnology group has dosed the first participants in the paediatric study, in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health, examining dosage and safety in almost 7,000 children.

Chilean copper miner Antofagasta said its earnings rose 12 per cent last year as copper prices recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. The miner said it had maintained its copper production despite the onset of the pandemic in March, and also benefited from a weaker Chilean peso during the year.

Investors are more worried about inflation and ructions in the bond market than they are about Covid-19, according to a Bank of America survey. Fears concerning rising inflation (37 per cent) and a “tantrum” in government debt markets (35 per cent) ranked ahead of Covid-19 risks in the monthly BofA survey of fund managers.

Wedding plans for 7,000 couples have been thrown into doubt, an industry lobby group has warned. Venues thought they would be allowed to host celebrations for up to 15 people from April 12 but UK Weddings Taskforce, which represents the £15bn wedding sector, said they had been told on Tuesday they would not be allowed until May 17.